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Learn basic and intermediate programming skills in an easy-to-learn and fun-to-use language. Many of the ideas you will learn will carry over to other programming languages and ideas.

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Sunday, January 8, 2017

4th Edition ideas

I'm thinking of ideas to put into the next edition of my book. It's not going to be for a while, since the last edition just came out last June, but I like to plan for the future.

So far, I want to add a chapter on unit testing, change the WebDev chapter from Karrigell to Flask or another, more popular web framework, and maybe talk a little bit about extending Python using C/C++.

2 comments:

Hi my name is Tyrone, I am very interested in the computer field and am currently working on my Comptia A+ certification. I am thinking about focusing on becoming an engineer as I gain more certifications. I would find it a huge help to let me know what are some great ways to gain experience in software engineering? Also what would be a good starting job to lead towards that field of work? I have a year and half before I graduate with my CIS software securtity if i choose to. thank you so much if you read this and reply.

There are few certs for programming, so don't worry too much about that aspect. Most programming jobs really want experience; a degree is nice but not necessary, unless you want to move into management.

There are programming bootcamps that will teach you how to program in just a few months. I am a mentor at Thinkful.com and most of the courses are about three months long. They also offer a full-time web developer course that guarantees a job within six months of completion, but it is pretty expensive.

The benefit of these bootcamps is that you have focused study objectives and, at the end, a capstone project that you can show potential employers. Otherwise, you're really on your own to gain experience.

If you go it alone, I recommend getting a couple of different books and learning the nuances of a particular language. For example, learn the basics of Python then, when your comfortable, look at some of the third-party modules available and build something with them.

Once you feel like you can make a program from scratch, look at other languages to learn. Look at the requirements in job descriptions and learn what they want, e.g. Docker, Django, JavaScript, CI, etc.

You'll never know everything, but as long as you can show that you can learn new things and can produce quality work, i.e. reviewers don't have to make a lot of changes to your code, you should be able to get a job.